THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.” -- William Shakespeare .....................

I am often asked why I prefer the lead of the king from ace-king rather than the ace. Today’s deal exemplifies one of the admittedly minor advantages my method has. Imagine your partner leads the diamond ace against four hearts. Now plan the defense.

If your partner has led from the diamond ace-king, you might need to unblock the diamond queen to tell partner to lead a low diamond to you, for a spade through declarer. The clubs in dummy present a threat of sorts, since declarer might be able to discard either a slow or fast loser on the 13th club.

However, there is a real danger that some layouts exist equivalent to that shown in the answer. Here a careless and extravagant signal of the diamond queen will let declarer play the diamond suit for only one loser by finessing the diamond 10 at some point in the hand. On the actual hand, you want partner to continue playing diamonds (a spade switch by West would be fatal to the defense), so signal with the diamond six, the highest card you can afford. Partner will, you hope, continue with diamonds, and in due course declarer will lose two tricks in spades and two in diamonds, for one down.

If the diamond ace denies the king, then East would never have any thought of unblocking a high diamond at the first trick. If your partnership frequently leads unsupported aces (especially in bid and supported suits), the king-lead from ace-king has a clear advantage.